CTIA Hands On Extravaganza: LG Optimus 3D and G2x, HTC Flyer, HD7S, EVO 3D, and Galaxy Tab 10.1, 8.9
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 23, 2011 2:31 AM ESTHTC HD7S
At CTIA this year HTC introduced the Windows Phone 7 HD7S, a slightly upgraded version of the HD7 it has been shipping for a while now. The upgrade? A 4.3-inch Super LCD screen. Super LCD in this case is actually just a fun marketing name for a PVA panel. So not quite as good as IPS but not quite as bad as TN.
Microsoft also started pushing out its first major update to the Windows Phone 7 OS while we were at CTIA, codenamed NoDo. I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed in how long it took Microsoft to finally update the OS. While we were quite pleased with Microsoft's launch of the platform, without more aggressive updates to both hardware and software there's little hope for it to compete with Apple and Google.
HTC EVO 3D
Big news today at CTIA for Qualcomm: HTC's EVO 3D is the first smartphone that will use its new MSM8660 SoC. For those of you who have trouble following Qualcomm Snapdragon nomenclature, the MSM8660 features two Scorpion cores, an Adreno 220 GPU and a CDMA2000+GSM/UMTS modem all on a single 45nm SoC. In the case of the EVO 3D these two cores run at up to 1.2GHz.
The two Scorpion cores in the EVO 3D each have their own clock and voltage inputs, thus they can be clocked completely independently of one another. Qualcomm believes this gives it an inherent power advantage over other dual-core designs in mixed workload scenarios. It remains to be seen how well Qualcomm's asynchronous clocking works in practice however.
The EVO 3D features a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 qHD display (similar to the Motorola Atrix), although it's unclear whether this is a PenTile LCD or not. Like the LG Optimus 3D, this display uses a parallax barrier to deliver glasses-free 3D. Around back are two 5MP cameras that can be used in tandem for capturing 3D photos and video (at 2MP and 720p, respectively).
Also on the EVO 3D is the latest version of HTC's Sense UI. One of the new features in this version of Sense is the ability to launch apps directly from the lock screen. Drag the circle up to unlock or drag it on top of any icon below it to unlock your phone and immediately launch the selected app. The next few years of mobile OS evolution will involve serious improvements to UI efficiency - this is just the first step.
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cactusdog - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Anand, can you do a story on the OWC accusation that OCZ is using poor quality nand in their SSD's?Its important for customers to know who is telling the truth.
Thanks
softdrinkviking - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
i am curious about that too.i also remember reading something about OCZ purposefully making their controllers more tolerant so that they could use cheaper nand without any problems.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
That was one of the advantages Sandforce pushed for their controller, that it could make use of cheaper NAND because of its lower write-amplification and error checkingAnand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
It's an interesting story, I've been digging for the past few days on it. As far as I can tell the SpecTek NAND is rated for 3K cycles, just like normal Micron NAND (Intel NAND is rated at 5K).I don't believe there's any issue with SpecTek branded NAND (at least not what's in OWC's picture) but I'm trying to get my hands on some to test for myself to make sure.
Take care,
Anand
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
OWC is lying, plain and simple. They are knowingly making false accusations. They should be sued by OCZ. OCZ has explained the situation very well. Spektek takes a failed wafer and sorts out the failures and sells the good pieces to OCZ. There is nothing substandard in the parts coming from Spektek, if they have the proper numbering ("AL" in this case.)What OWC is claiming is basically the same as saying that the three working cores of an Athlon X3 are somehow defective because there is a disabled core on the die. It is complete nonsense.
cactusdog - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
Well, it seems odd that the article is still up on OWC and OCZ forum mods are locking down threads and refusing to make any further comment.Anand, that would be good. Maybe you could contact spectek and/or Micron too to get their response.
Conficio - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Why do I need to have this 3D nonsense if I'd like a large phone with a good two core processor and a decent GPU? Really HTC, et. al. why do I need an odd 3D display and the bloat of driver software that means and the dual cameras of low quality.Where is a phone that invests the money into things that matter, like a good camera (8 Mega pixels, flash, recessed or protected as to not become a scratch magnet [ or some screw on cap tha can be replaced for a few dollars]), and a quality 2D screen [qHD sounds good to me], dual core processor, quad or penta band?
I'm in the market this year for a phone (and I replace a Treo 600, if you know what I mean).
jharper12 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Anand,BlueScreen from the Android Forums, someone who allegedly works in software development for HTC and who leaked info on the original Evo, posted a couple of items of interest. First, he claimed the ROM in the Evo 3D was actually "RAM Silicon" and could function as RAM "Depending on the needs of the 2nd processor."
He also mentioned the HTC Shooter benchmarks that popped up earlier in the week. "I know there was some flak on the recent GLBenchmarks and we caught hell for it around here as well. I just wanted to let you know that fit and finish on that has been polished out. Memory allocation was only single set data stream and we have now been able to utilize duel data stream with a bump in memory clock speeds. I guess you could use the analogy of SDRAM compared to DDRAM... I can say that we were able to almost double our GLbench scores with just the memory fix though."
Do either of those things sound remotely possible to you? How do you think the MSM8660 is going to fair against OMAP offerings? How substantial is the difference between the A9 and A8? I've read it's approximately a 25% performance difference clock for clock, which if that's the case, would only give the 1Ghz A9 offerings a 8.5% performance advantage. Lots of random questions, but I suppose I'm most interested in whether or not that RAM ROM business even sounds feasible to you.
Thanks for the amazing website and reporting. This is always the first place I go when I want unbiased, benchmarking, tell it like it is reporting. I've learned a lot here.
Leaked HTC Shooter benchmarks - allegedly the Evo 3D using the MSM8660.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Scores-for-the-unre...
jharper12 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
From reading more today, looks like this "inside man" was just trolling and spitting out random information. Sad... I wonder if that means those benchmarks are fairly indicative of how this phone will perform in relation to the other current gen platforms. Rough.PWRuser - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
Optimus 3D appears to be under the radar, all eyes are on the EVO but Optimus 3D is all around a very good phone. Dominates the Incredible as well.On the other hand, Tegra 3 and OMAP 5 already in the works, makes more sense to wait out unitl 28nm next gen SoC's start shipping.